Welcome to Sandbox; an online tool for sketching and sharing chiptune melodies! Sandbox is a modded varient of John Nesky's Beepbox. If you haven't already, give Beepbox a try before coming here!
Like the original Beepbox, song data is packaged into the URL at the top of your browser. When you make changes to the song, the URL is updated
to reflect your changes. When you are satisfied with your song, just copy and paste the URL to save and share your song!
You can add or remove notes by clicking on the gray rows at the top. Sandbox automatically plays the notes out loud for you. Try it!
Notes go into patterns, and you can edit one pattern at a time. Those numbered boxes at the bottom of the editor are the
different patterns you can edit. Click the other boxes to move to a different part of the song, or click the arrows
on the currently selected box to swap which pattern is played during that part of the song.
There are four rows of patterns that Sandbox can play simultaneously, and each row has its own set of patterns. The first
three rows can play melodies and the bottom row is for "drums".
The purple loop underneath the numbered boxes controls which part of the song is currently repeating. Move the loop to listen
to a different part of the song, or drag the ends to expand the loop to include the whole song.
When Sandbox has focus (click on its interface above), you can use these keyboard shortcuts:
Spacebar: Pause or Resume
Z: Undo
Y or Shift Z: Redo
C: Copy the current pattern
V: Paste the current
pattern
[ ]: Move the playhead backward and forward
Arrow Keys: Change which bar is selected
1-8: Reassign
a pattern to the currently selected bar
In the pattern editor, you can click and drag horizontally on a note to adjust its duration. You can also click above or
below an existing note to enable a rapid arpeggio/trill effect, oscillating between two or more simultaneous notes.
ADVANCED: Drag vertically from an existing note to bend its pitch, or drag vertically from above or below the note to adjust
its volume.
Sandbox has many more features. Try playing with the buttons and menus on the right side to find out what it can do!
BeepBox is developed by John Nesky, also known as @shaktool. Sandbox is developed by Parad0xGamer and Astra.
Sandbox, other Modded Beepbox varients, and the original BeepBox do not claim ownership over songs created with it, so original songs belong to their authors.
Neither John Nesky, BeepBox, Sandbox, or one of the Sandbox Devs assume responsibility for any copyrighted material played on BeepBox. All song data is contained in the URL after the hash (#) mark, and BeepBox
running inside your browser converts that data into sound waves.
You can download an offline Flash version of Sandbox on its Github page
to use when you don't have access to the internet. The features are the same unless updated while you're offline.
Sandbox uses symbols instead of certain words to make understanding easier. A list of them is shown below.
":)": Major
":(": Minor
"+": Augmented
"-": Diminished
"±": Compound
"~": Detuned/Resonated
"⟲/🗘": Feedback Loop
"→": Modulator
Looking for 1.x updates? Go Here!
Looking for 2.x updates? Go Here!
* Aug. 21, 2018: 3.0.0: 3.0.0 is here! A lot of things have been added and tweaked for the better. For instance, the cap for Pitch and Drums have been set to Infinity (Just don't go too crazy with them as the page might slow down). New Octaves have also been added! You can now reach higher notes that couldn't be reached before! The upper part of the editor has been streamlined to have more room. New choruses; Inject, Dirty, Askewed, Resonance, and Harmonic Tonk; have all been added. Another Effect, Filter, and Waveform have all been added as well; Tremble/Vibrate/Annihilator, Undertone, and Triple Pulse respectively. Three new Envelopes have been added; They include Lift, Drop, and Bounce. A new Rhythm, ÷96 (Arpfestfest) has been added as well. Envelope Names have been changed (Which I accidently leaked in the previous upd00t), along with 4 new Frequencies; 0.5x, ~0.5x, 0.25x, and ~0.25x. New feedback options have been added as well! 1→3 2→1, 1→4 2→1, and (2→1→3→2)⟲. Two more drum waves have also been added; High and Bassinet. Another new preference, Dark Mode, has been introduced as well (I think this will be just a bit more easy on the eyes)! Also, the Terminology section, the intro section, the FM Demo, and the Color Pallet have been changed, along with how the Changelog itself is formatted. Finally, all of the Sliders have been tweaked so that they'll match their intended functions from the update they all were released (2.0.0) and finalized (2.0.1) in both Chip and FM.
* Nov. 28, 2018: 3.0.1: Added Shift filter (originally from ModBox).